0:00

Hey everybody, it's Tim Heidecker. You know me, Tim and

0:02

Eric, bridesmaids in

0:03

Fantastic Four. I'd like

0:05

to personally invite you to listen to Office Hours

0:07

Live with me and my co-hosts, DJ

0:10

Doug Pound. Hello. And Vic Berger.

0:12

Howdy. Every week we bring you laughs, fun, games,

0:14

and lots of other surprises. It's live. We

0:17

take your Zoom calls. Music. We love having fun. Excuse

0:19

me? Songs. Vic said something. Music. Songs.

0:22

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to laugh. I like to meet

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people who can make me laugh.

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Please subscribe now.

0:38

Back in the 20th century, science fiction

0:40

promised us all sorts of exciting technology,

0:42

like teleportation devices and jet

0:45

packs and tractor beams. But there's

0:47

one device that Slate senior producer Evan

0:49

Chung dreamed about more than all

0:51

the others.

0:52

I always wanted a hovercraft.

0:55

When I say

0:57

hovercraft, I don't mean something crazy

0:59

like a flying Jetsons car. I'm

1:01

talking about a personal vehicle that glides

1:04

over the ground while levitating a perfectly

1:07

reasonable amount, like enough to

1:09

avoid potholes but not disrupt the

1:11

migratory patterns of waterfowl. I

1:14

wanted something like Luke Skywalker's

1:16

land speeder. Might be

1:17

our little R2 unit. Hit the accelerator. I

1:21

know for me, the quintessential hovercraft

1:23

was in Back to the Future 2, when

1:25

Marty McFly zips around on a levitating

1:28

skateboard. He's on a hoverboard! In

1:31

the real world, people have been attempting to

1:33

make vehicles like these for decades. One

1:36

of the most unusual recent developments

1:38

is the flying platform. The

1:40

operator is standing directly above two

1:43

revolving ducted fans.

1:44

This is from a 1957 documentary. An

1:47

astonishing new principle of flight.

1:50

Within the next few years, these drawings

1:52

will become reality.

1:56

not

2:00

available to the average citizen.

2:03

Except Evan swears that back in the 1990s, when

2:05

he was growing up, he could have had one.

2:08

And it wasn't some sci-fi novel telling

2:10

me this. It came from a perfectly

2:13

legitimate source that promised

2:15

that a kid like me could float

2:18

on air.

2:20

Evan read that promise 30 years

2:22

ago. And I've been thinking about

2:25

it ever since.

2:34

This is Dakota Ring. I'm Willa Paskin.

2:36

And I'm Evan Chung. When you're a kid,

2:39

you're fascinated by all sorts of

2:41

things. Dinosaurs, heavy

2:43

construction machinery, mixing random

2:46

drinks together and daring your friends to chug it

2:48

down. Usually, you grow out

2:50

of it. But when I was just a

2:52

boy, I became obsessed with

2:54

an advertisement lodged at the back

2:56

of my favorite Boy Scout magazine. And

2:59

I never got over it. In

3:02

this episode, I'll journey halfway

3:04

across the country, wield power

3:06

tools, summon my latent scouting

3:09

skills, and conscript my father

3:11

into a quest three decades in the

3:13

making.

3:15

So today on Dakota Ring, can

3:17

you float on air?

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4:48

My fascination with hovercraft began

4:50

as a cub scout. To be clear, I

4:53

was not exactly a model scout. I

4:56

hate camping. I never learned

4:58

to build a fire or orienteer

5:01

or even wear a neckerchief properly. But

5:04

I liked cub scouts anyway. There

5:06

were two parts I enjoyed most. The

5:08

first was the Pinewood Derby where

5:10

you build little cars out of wood and race

5:13

them down a track. I surrendered

5:15

the entire project to my dad and

5:17

the cars that he essentially made for me

5:20

always did really well in the race.

5:22

And I love that. And

5:24

the second thing I loved was what came

5:26

in the mail. If you were in Boy

5:28

Scouts, you can get a subscription to

5:30

Boys Life magazine. That's my friend

5:33

Brian. Unlike me, he was

5:35

a model scout. I did like survival

5:37

swimming. We learned CPR.

5:40

We'd have to wake up at like four in the morning and learn

5:43

random knots. But

5:46

as kids, we both read the

5:48

same thing.

5:49

Oh, this was like the most fundamental part

5:51

of my experience as a Boy Scout

5:54

and Cub Scout as a kid. Boy's

5:56

Life is the official youth magazine

5:58

for the Boy Scouts of America.

7:59

and I think my imagination as a kid

8:02

just ran away with the idea of hovering.

8:04

The

8:07

idea of like showing up to school

8:09

in a hovercraft just sounded so nice.

8:12

You just float to school, everyone's looking at you

8:14

and you just like park the hovercraft

8:17

outside of the school and it just floats all day waiting

8:20

for you. And then when school ended,

8:22

I would go back outside and I'd put my book

8:24

bag on it and then hover back home.

8:27

So it's just always on, it's more like a magic carpet

8:29

or something. It's exactly like

8:31

a magic carpet. That's the best way to describe it. It

8:33

just floats. I don't even know if you could

8:35

turn it off. What kind

8:36

of elevation were you picturing? Like

8:39

three feet maybe. I'm not hovering

8:42

way up there. I'm not in the clouds, but

8:45

clearly I'm hovering. It's like, wow, that

8:47

guy is truly like floating.

8:50

My hovercraft fantasy was similar

8:52

to Brian's. Only I lived in a dense

8:54

city with narrow clogged streets. So

8:57

hovering to school was harder for me to

8:59

picture. When I stared at the image

9:01

in boys' life, I imagined myself

9:04

zipping through the hallways inside my

9:06

school, beating everybody else to the four

9:08

square court at recess.

9:12

But dreaming about a hovercraft was

9:14

as far as I ever got. Brian

9:18

though, is built of different stuff.

9:20

The good resourceful scout

9:22

that he is, he actually found

9:25

a way to scrape together the money that

9:27

the ad said it would cost to make him

9:29

the envy of his peers.

9:31

All $8 of it. I

9:33

had truly no concept of money. And

9:36

so like for me, $8 seemed fair. That

9:39

seems reasonable for a hovercraft, right?

9:41

When the day finally came for the package

9:44

to be delivered to his house, he was shocked

9:46

to discover that what he'd ordered was

9:49

not a hovercraft. We

9:52

got like just a little pamphlet of instructions

9:54

telling us how to build a hovercraft, which

9:57

involved complicated stuff you

9:59

need to like.

9:59

scrap parts from I don't even

10:02

know what, but we absolutely

10:04

never tried to make it. That's

10:07

when the dream ended.

10:10

But did it have to? Brian

10:12

and I were grownups now, not Cub Scouts,

10:15

and we still wanted to hover. Oh,

10:18

I would love to. The dream of hovering

10:21

has not ever gone away. I

10:23

mean,

10:24

who would say no to hovering?

10:27

Did this thing really work? It

10:31

was time to find out. We'll

10:36

be right back.

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This episode is supported

11:23

by About the Journey, an original podcast

11:26

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player. We'll also link in the show

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notes. Thanks to About the Journey

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for their support.

12:30

I wanted to know if the hovercraft was for

12:32

real, if it worked, and I

12:34

figured I could begin by finding the

12:37

person who had paid for the ad in the first

12:39

place. So I started

12:41

digging into the Boys Life archives.

12:44

It seemed that the first issue to feature the

12:46

ad was in April 1974, nearly 20 years before

12:51

Brian and I had seen it as kids.

12:54

But that first ad looked virtually identical.

12:57

The same picture of the kid on the triangular

12:59

air car

13:00

and the same tantalizing promise

13:03

that you could float on air. Back

13:06

then, though, it only cost $3. There

13:10

was also a company listed in the ad

13:13

based in Newport Beach, California. And

13:16

when I looked into it, it led me

13:18

somewhere useful. Hey, Evan,

13:20

this is Neil Roth regarding the

13:22

air car story. I'm

13:25

actually the kid that was in the picture in Boys Life magazine.

13:32

I still remember the photo session.

13:35

I was probably, boy, I don't even know, 10,

13:37

11 years old. Neil Ross

13:39

lives in Orange County, California, very

13:41

close to where his father David snapped the

13:43

picture in the early 70s. My

13:46

dad was a professional photographer. That's what he did for

13:48

a living. I remember putting on my hang 10 shirt

13:50

and we went to his studio and he he set up

13:52

all the backgrounds and the lights and he

13:55

said, okay, I need you to put your hand on the back of

13:57

the seat. And of course I could hardly

13:59

wait to get out of that.

13:59

there because my dad was always taking pictures of

14:02

us as a family and it used to drive us crazy.

14:05

Lo and beholds who would have thought that one

14:07

of the pictures that day would be in the same magazine

14:10

every issue for I think well over 30

14:12

years. Neil's

14:14

dad wasn't just the hovercrafts photographer.

14:17

He was its inventor.

14:19

It all started with his first professional

14:21

gig back in the 1940s. Fresh

14:23

out of photo school, David Ross took

14:25

a job as a test flight motion picture

14:28

photographer at Edwards Air Force Base

14:30

in California.

14:31

He arrived there at a thrilling moment.

14:34

At the time, it was becoming the center

14:37

for experimental aircraft technology.

14:40

For here is where test flights

14:42

of all high speed research aircraft

14:44

have taken place. It was at Edwards

14:47

where Chuck Yeager made history in 1947. Captain

14:50

Yeager flew the X-1 faster than

14:52

the speed of sound in level flight. Another

14:56

historic highlight in the aerospace

14:58

age. Those

15:01

guys were going up in planes.

15:01

They didn't know if they were going to be coming back and my

15:03

dad was right in the middle of it. David

15:06

Ross was photographing these hot shots

15:08

and going up into the skies to film

15:11

their strange new aircraft in motion.

15:13

He became just an absolute total airplane

15:16

and space geek. In fact, I'm

15:19

actually named after Neil Armstrong.

15:22

As Neil grew up, his dad introduced

15:24

him and his brother to another of his interests.

15:28

Boy Scouts. My dad was very

15:30

involved. He was a guy that would help, you know, build the canoes

15:32

that we would paddle down the Colorado

15:35

River every year in the spring.

15:36

He even launched his own Scout like

15:39

organization for boys. He called it

15:41

Space Clubs of America.

15:44

He would teach the kids how to build model rockets.

15:47

Then he'd take them to the park to launch them. You

15:49

know, a big crowd would form. We'd shoot our

15:51

rockets up and then, you know, the parachute would deploy

15:53

and then we'd go chase them across the park. That

15:56

was a blast.

15:58

At the same time that.

17:59

I didn't want to get off it. My dad said,

18:02

hey, listen, you gotta let some of the other kids try it. And

18:04

so all those kids that were in the gym all jumped

18:06

on it, and he pushed them across the floor of the

18:08

gym.

18:10

The air car hovercraft worked.

18:13

And David Ross was inspired to take the next

18:15

step. He wanted to make it

18:17

available to other people,

18:19

specifically to other Boy

18:21

Scouts. So he learned

18:24

how to set up a mail order business. He

18:26

took those photos of Neil with his invention,

18:28

and he created the ad that so captivated

18:31

me. It debuted in Boy's

18:33

Life in April 1974, and

18:36

soon after, the orders started

18:38

rolling in. You know, I remember

18:41

my mom opening up all these letters with

18:43

kids writing on them, and the envelope would be

18:45

full of change. I mean, Penny's, Nichols, Dimes, Quarters. I

18:48

mean, it was crazy, the old emptying

18:50

of the piggy bank, because they wanted to float on air.

18:54

The ad ran month after month through

18:57

the 70s, 80s, and the 90s when it reached me and my

19:00

friend Brian. Neil says the

19:02

air car never made his family rich, but

19:05

it was enough loose change to fund their

19:07

vacations every year.

19:11

Then along came the internet,

19:14

and the entire mail order industry started

19:16

to evaporate. That's

19:18

really why it came to an end, is it started

19:21

falling off, and the business just got

19:23

smaller and smaller and smaller, and he finally just kind of

19:25

shuttered things up.

19:26

The final air car ad ran

19:28

in the August 2003 issue of Boy's Life.

19:34

I just remember the air car being kind

19:36

of an integral part of

19:38

our family. I was always really kind of proud

19:40

of the fact that my dad invented

19:43

this thing that kind of became kind

19:45

of a ubiquitous thing within the Boy Scouts. Having

19:49

Neil's memories of floating on his dad's

19:51

invention got me excited all over

19:53

again. Finally, I had

19:55

first-hand testimony that the hovercraft

19:58

that my friend Brian and I had

19:59

fantasized about actually worked.

20:03

It was all the confirmation I needed. 30 years

20:06

after I first encountered it, I

20:09

was going to build the hovercraft.

20:15

We'll be back in a minute.

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21:52

So my mind was made up. I

21:54

was going to turn this fantasy of floating

21:57

on air into reality. The

21:59

only issue...

21:59

The issue is, I am miserable

22:02

at building things. But luckily,

22:04

I knew just who to call for help.

22:07

Hi Evan. Hi

22:09

Dad. What's up? So

22:12

do you remember when I was in Cub

22:14

Scouts? In Hong Kong, yes. Oh

22:17

yeah, I still have the picture of

22:18

you in the uniform in

22:21

my wallet. I carry it all the time.

22:24

Now, today. And

22:26

I treasure that. When people ask me

22:28

about my sons, I'll show them

22:30

the picture while you were wearing

22:33

Cub Scout uniforms. I don't know if that's

22:35

that representative of me.

22:37

Would you describe me as someone who is very Boy Scout-like

22:40

in terms of being very handy

22:42

and things like that? Well,

22:46

not overwhelmingly.

22:49

The

22:51

major things that I remember

22:54

is the pine... What

22:56

was it called? Pine... The Pinewood Derby? Pinewood

23:00

Derby, okay. I mentioned

23:02

the Pinewood Derby earlier about how back

23:04

when I was a Cub Scout, I had to make a wooden

23:07

race car. I would stare helplessly

23:09

at my block of pine until my dad

23:11

came to my rescue and did the entire

23:13

thing for me. And it was fun

23:16

making the cards and

23:18

painted them and we raced them. It was

23:21

great

23:21

fun, you know. My memory is that I was kind of

23:23

useless and that I just had to rely

23:25

on you to do everything. You

23:28

know, well, that's... well, either

23:30

way... no. You

23:32

know, I hate to say that at

23:35

some points I took over

23:37

the project, but yeah, well, it was fun. I

23:40

reminded my dad about getting Boys

23:42

Life magazine and told him about

23:44

being fascinated with the hovercraft ad

23:46

in the back. But I

23:48

don't remember this. Are you by a computer?

23:51

I can send you a photo of it. Yeah,

23:53

I'm right in front of the screen,

23:55

yeah. Alright, I just sent it to your email.

23:58

The AOL email? Okay, let's

24:00

take a look. You're one of the few people I

24:02

know who still has an AOL email. Okay,

24:04

wow. Wait a minute.

24:10

Lift 200 pounds.

24:14

And then only, so probably

24:16

the $8 is for the plan to

24:19

build it, right? Yeah, exactly. Right,

24:21

right. So now I've got a copy of the plans.

24:25

And I was thinking about coming

24:27

over to you and to see if maybe we could try

24:30

building this together.

24:31

Okay, sure. You

24:33

know, with with both our resources

24:36

and all that, maybe you need some woodwork

24:38

cutting and so on, you know, so

24:41

yeah, be fun. Again,

24:44

I apologize. I don't want

24:46

to take over the project. It's your

24:48

project. I'll, you know, I'll be just

24:50

participating.

24:54

My dad worked in offices his whole career,

24:57

so he learned how to be handy the old-fashioned

24:59

way by just figuring it out for

25:02

himself. When we moved into our

25:04

house outside Chicago, he went

25:06

into full suburban dad mode, learning

25:09

how to landscape and how to finish a basement

25:11

without any real guidance. We

25:13

were going to need that approach for this project.

25:16

David Ross's plans for the air car are

25:18

filled with sketches and general tips,

25:21

but a hovercraft is not an

25:23

Ikea futon. There's no step-by-step

25:26

assembly guide. That became clear

25:28

to me after I flew to Chicago and

25:30

we went to pick up our supplies at Home Depot.

25:33

Okay, we go to the lumber

25:36

area. We

25:38

would need glue, nylon cord,

25:41

casters, basic hardware, and

25:43

a very thin sheet of plywood

25:45

that, according to the plan, I was supposed

25:47

to eventually ride on. It's

25:50

very flimsy. You have to be

25:52

very careful you don't step in the wrong

25:54

place.

25:56

Easy enough for an eight-year-old, but

25:58

what about when an adult knows?

25:59

man tries to ride it.

26:02

The ad in Boy's Life had assured us it

26:04

could lift 200 pounds, which should

26:07

be sufficient for me or Brian. But

26:09

a close look at the instructions revealed

26:12

some surprises. The first

26:14

is there are actually plans for four

26:16

different models of the air car. Naturally,

26:19

we'd want to build the iconic one from Neil's

26:21

picture, the triangular model with three

26:24

hovering discs. But then

26:26

came the next surprise. According

26:28

to the plan, that hovercraft

26:30

can only handle 125 pounds. So

26:34

it would have to be air car model number

26:36

three, which is a single large

26:39

disc, four feet in diameter. I

26:42

had to admit, it didn't look as cool

26:44

as the triangle shaped version in the ad.

26:47

But the plans claimed it's the one

26:49

that works the best and is the simplest

26:52

to build. The wooden

26:54

part is a no brainer,

26:56

easy. Okay, this is, that's

26:59

very easy. But as

27:01

for the hovering part.

27:03

Well, so

27:05

far, I look at the plan, it sounds

27:07

like this is theory. Has

27:10

anyone made one that worked? Well,

27:13

according to Neil Ross, yes, his dad

27:15

did. Powered by the motor of a

27:17

canister vacuum cleaner, cut in half with

27:20

a hacksaw. The plans include

27:22

suggestions of where you can pick one up, like

27:24

a vacuum cleaner repair shop. Do

27:27

you have stores like that anymore?

27:30

No, okay. If someone

27:32

is doing it in 1975,

27:35

probably easy

27:37

to find one, that's no problem. But

27:39

today, I don't think you'll ever be

27:41

able to find a vacuum cleaner like

27:44

that. Instead, my dad happened

27:46

to have a modern alternative sitting in

27:48

his garage. Hurricane

27:52

power leaf blower. Well,

27:58

this is like more powerful.

27:59

than four of these five of these

28:02

vacuum cleaner together. So

28:04

you're not worried about deviating from the plan? No,

28:07

no, no, no, no, no, no. I

28:09

have to confess that I was a little worried.

28:11

As much confidence as I have in my dad's

28:14

skills, it's not the first time

28:16

he's tried to outsmart a set of instructions.

28:19

When I was in junior high, for whatever

28:21

reason, I desperately wanted

28:23

a talk box the device Peter

28:26

Frampton uses to make his guitar come alive.

28:28

Here we

28:28

go, Leo. I'm a

28:31

nerd.

28:32

I found plans for a DIY

28:34

talk box, but my dad decided

28:36

to make some modifications. Actually,

28:39

a lot of modifications.

28:40

I ended up with a piece of wood with

28:42

a tube sticking out of it that did not

28:45

sound arena ready. In fact,

28:47

it didn't make any sound at all. But

28:50

I would just have to trust my dad on this

28:52

one. Tunes, tunes,

28:55

tunes, wonderful tunes.

28:57

We got to work in the garage, measuring

28:59

out the pieces we'd need. He

29:03

says 12 inches, right? According

29:05

to the plans, the air car can be built

29:08

in just a few hours. I did

29:10

my best to try to find ways that I

29:12

could help, whether with tracing or hammering

29:15

or planing the wood. Should I do

29:16

it this way or this way? What?

29:22

It seemed safest to let my dad handle

29:24

all the sign. Okay.

29:33

It took us an entire day, but eventually

29:36

we'd constructed the circular frame

29:38

for the air car, with a hole all

29:40

ready for mounting a leaf blower. There

29:42

was just one final step. Figure

29:45

six, the skirt. That's

29:47

my biggest question mark.

29:51

The plans call for a narrow strip

29:53

of fabric to drape around the

29:55

perimeter of the hovercraft. The bottom

29:57

has to curve in. How do you...

29:59

you make it so that

30:02

the whole thing lines up exactly.

30:06

And then there's no leak. I

30:08

don't know.

30:10

A skirt is not something I'd ever envisioned

30:12

looking at the ad, but Neil Ross warned

30:14

me that it's actually the critical component

30:17

of the air car. That's the toughest

30:19

part to get right. The skirts that

30:21

actually create the lift, the

30:24

skirt would keep the air trapped underneath the

30:26

plywood and you would actually float

30:29

on that two-inch skirt. So that's kind of the trickiest

30:32

part because you're gonna need somebody that's pretty good with a sewing

30:34

machine. I'm sorry to

30:36

say that, well, we come from

30:38

a family of

30:40

tailors. My parents are

30:42

tailors, but I've never handled

30:44

a sewing machine. So...

30:47

For my dad, I think it was extremely

30:50

frustrating to find something completely

30:52

out of his skillset.

30:54

But

30:55

perhaps here was my chance at

30:57

last to contribute to the project.

31:00

So I looked to the air car plans for guidance

31:02

on the sewing.

31:04

It says to have your mother or

31:06

sister do it. Yeah, because that's what you

31:08

need to do, is get your mom and sister to do it because, you

31:10

know, dudes don't do that. Oh

31:15

boy. I didn't have a mom or sister

31:17

with a sewing machine handy,

31:19

but luckily I did have my friend Soren

31:21

nearby, who is an avid clothesmaker.

31:24

He also happens to be a former boy scout,

31:27

which means he's no stranger to the back

31:29

pages of Boys Life magazine. I

31:31

totally remember this hovercraft.

31:33

I can just imagine

31:35

me as a kid going like, yeah man, I'm gonna fly

31:37

that thing to school. And everybody's gonna be

31:39

like, that's so cool that you have a hovercraft.

31:42

To make the skirt, he would have to sew two

31:45

nylon cords into a 12 foot

31:47

strip of vinyl sheeting, basically like

31:49

a shower liner. I just have weird

31:51

material to work with. What

31:53

we wanted to end up with was essentially a

31:56

big round plastic hoop, a few

31:58

inches tall.

31:59

then dangle from the edge

32:01

of the circular piece of plywood.

32:30

The truth was, by this time, I was

32:33

starting to be filled with doubt myself. Neil

32:36

Ross had warned me about the limitations

32:38

of the air car. As cool as

32:40

it was and as fun as it was, it was

32:43

unfortunately a little bit impractical. You

32:46

had to have this thing plugged into a wall and

32:48

he had to have somebody push you because it wasn't

32:50

self-propelled. You couldn't really

32:52

lean left or right very much. You

32:54

had to be very quite stationary because if your

32:56

weight changed too much, it would collapse the

32:58

skirt on one end of the air car.

33:00

I mean, your bike was more practical because

33:02

you could actually ride to the convenience store and buy some

33:04

bubble gum.

33:08

Our air car was just about finished.

33:11

Even if it worked, I knew it could

33:13

never live up to that childhood fantasy

33:15

of freedom, of cruising around

33:18

on my own set of hover discs, not

33:20

when it had to stay tethered to an outlet. I

33:23

could steal myself for potential disappointment.

33:26

But what about my friend Brian? Suddenly

33:29

I felt the weight of responsibility

33:31

for maybe destroying his fantasy too.

33:34

And then there was my dad.

33:36

He took such pride in his handiwork.

33:39

Was I just setting him up to fail? Instead

33:42

of lifting us up, was the hovercraft

33:45

going to let us down?

33:49

I didn't have to wait long to find out because

33:52

the next warning would be the hovercraft's

33:54

maiden voyage. I'm

33:58

so excited to see that.

33:59

hovercraft I've been

34:02

waiting my whole life for this I was filled

34:05

with apprehension as Brian and I pulled

34:07

up to my dad's house mr. Chown good

34:09

to see you so

34:12

you're working on the hovercraft I guess

34:17

now it's gonna look a little different from

34:19

what you might be expecting is it gonna

34:21

have the three deep dish pizza

34:23

shapes so no it's gonna be one

34:25

giant deep dish pizza oh

34:28

so this this is the hovercraft this

34:29

is it I nervously explained

34:32

to Brian why this air car didn't

34:34

look a whole lot like the triangular one

34:37

in boys life that this floating saucer

34:39

model was the only one that could theoretically

34:42

handle an adults weight we didn't even

34:44

bother building a seat because there'd be no room

34:46

left for a grown-up's legs okay

34:48

so that the one that's from the ad

34:50

with the three discs

34:52

is for little kids to hover

34:55

the iconic version is undeniably cooler

34:57

looking yeah we also had

34:59

to explain that it wasn't

35:01

exactly going to levitate the

35:03

height is actually limited by the size

35:05

of the fabric skirt around it our

35:08

skirt was about two and a half inches tall

35:10

so the maximum it could possibly lift

35:13

was two and a half inches off the ground

35:15

I mean as long as it hovers that's

35:17

the goal

35:22

we still had just a few finishing touches

35:24

to make on the air car before takeoff a

35:27

perfect day to build a hovercraft sunny

35:30

blue skies the

35:32

skirt was sealed to the plywood disc

35:35

the leaf blower was secured in position

35:38

finally the mission was ready

35:40

for launch I'm shocked that

35:42

this moment is even happening I've thought

35:44

about this hovercraft for most of my life

35:46

all right dad you want to plug it

35:48

in oh yeah

35:51

I'm feeling a little nervous yeah

35:54

this is this is the moment a

35:56

famous moment in the history of hovercrafts happening

35:59

right now

36:00

Brian and I got into position. We

36:03

would take turns climbing aboard the air

36:05

car in flight to sit cross-legged on the

36:07

plywood. 30 years

36:09

after becoming transfixed with the ad

36:11

in boys life, we were about to

36:13

learn if you really can float

36:16

on air. All

36:18

right, dad. Yeah. Whenever

36:20

you're ready. Let's do it. All

36:26

right. You're

36:31

like, I'm so much bigger. Wow.

36:40

Works.

36:44

It did work with a certain

36:47

limited definition of success. With

36:50

a push, we were able to glide

36:52

smoothly across the garage floor, at

36:55

least until we hit a crack in the cement.

36:57

But if you didn't know it was supposed

36:59

to be a hovercraft, you probably

37:01

wouldn't be able to tell that it was off the ground,

37:04

as opposed to just sliding on some very

37:06

small wheels. So it

37:08

wasn't exactly a levitating magic carpet,

37:11

but the ad was right. We could and

37:14

did float on air. It

37:17

reminds me of those air hockey

37:19

tables where you turn it on and you

37:21

hear the wish of the air and then the little puck

37:23

kind of starts to float a little bit, but it's

37:25

not quite airborne,

37:27

but it definitely has a lot of like,

37:29

it slides around. I

37:32

didn't feel disappointed at all. I

37:34

felt a sense of accomplishment. If

37:36

anything, I had an urge to keep tinkering

37:39

with it, to try out a taller skirt,

37:41

or I don't know, add a second leaf blower. And

37:44

maybe we could get it just a little closer

37:46

to how we imagined it as Cub Scouts. Well,

37:50

if I built this when I was a kid, it

37:52

wouldn't be what I thought it was. I

37:54

don't think I'd be able to float to school.

37:57

It's different from my childhood

37:59

fantasy. But it floats on

38:01

air. Yeah, you could still

38:04

maybe hovercraft a school with this if

38:06

yeah Well, if you had a really long

38:08

extension cord and the school was right by

38:10

your house, then you could probably do it I

38:14

don't know if this would make the other kids jealous.

38:16

Are you satisfied with the outcome? 100% it

38:20

satisfies this unanswered question

38:22

from my childhood from

38:24

looking at boys life and looking at this ad so

38:26

I Am honored that you you

38:28

put the time into it super that is the

38:30

best Reward that I get

38:33

from building this project

38:34

because if the project did not

38:37

work It's not the

38:39

fault of the plan. Maybe it

38:41

was me It

38:43

was only then that I fully grasped

38:45

just how much stress I had been putting

38:47

my dad under since I pitched him this project

38:50

when I hear you say your life Long

38:54

dream of this you see how

38:56

much pressure you're giving that

38:58

was laying on me I am gonna have

39:00

to deliver this try my best

39:03

to make it

39:04

work Well,

39:06

I'd been caught up worrying about disappointing

39:08

Brian or making a terrible podcast

39:10

episode I hadn't fully considered

39:13

my dad's anxiety He'd

39:15

been constantly fretting over the air

39:17

car schematics and feverishly planning

39:19

the construction afraid of letting anybody

39:22

down He'd even case

39:24

the Home Depot in advance mapping

39:26

out the most efficient shopping route he

39:28

put more thought into this hovercraft in

39:30

a couple weeks than Brian and I

39:32

had in our lifetime of obsessions

39:34

and With

39:36

my skills being just as paltry

39:38

as they were in Cub Scouts My dad's

39:40

the person who got the hovercraft off

39:42

the ground to be able just to execute

39:45

that It took the arsenal of

39:47

all my tools my skills

39:49

my common sense and everything

39:52

And finally we made it work

39:55

When David Ross invented the air car

39:58

he could have tried manufacturing and

40:00

selling pre-assembled hovercraft. But

40:03

he didn't. Instead, he chose

40:05

to place an ad for a set of instructions

40:08

in the back of Boys Life magazine.

40:10

And as his son Neil told me, there

40:13

was a reason for that. He just saw

40:15

that, you know, like the Pinewood Derby was kind of

40:17

a ubiquitous part of scouting. He

40:19

just saw the air car being a perfect

40:22

father-son project. Well, that was really the motivating

40:25

factor behind it. You got a lot of letters

40:27

back over the years just thanking him for

40:29

creating a really perfect opportunity for

40:32

fathers and sons to be involved with.

40:35

David Ross stayed close with his own

40:38

son until the day he died. In

40:40

his final years, he lived four

40:42

houses down from Neil, and they were together

40:44

constantly.

40:47

All those years earlier, David hadn't

40:49

just invented a hovering machine so

40:52

much as a hangout with your kid's machine.

40:54

Or, you know, a

40:55

hangout with your dad one. And

40:58

you can count me as another satisfied

41:00

customer. I moved

41:02

from Chicago nearly six years ago. So

41:05

these days, it's hard to find a chance to see

41:07

my dad more than sporadically. I

41:10

can't remember the last time we were together

41:12

for this long in one go. Who

41:14

would have thought that all it would take is a hovercraft?

41:18

What are you going to do with it? Are you going to take it and float

41:20

around town? I have to

41:22

find a space in the basement

41:25

to put it away. Don't

41:28

you want to tinker with it and refine it

41:30

so it gets better and better?

41:32

No. I

41:34

mean, I need my leaf

41:36

blower.

41:42

This is Decoder Ring. I'm Evan Sean.

41:45

And I'm Willa Paskin. If you have any cultural

41:47

mysteries you want us to decode, you can email

41:50

us at DecoderRing at Sleet.com.

41:53

This episode was written and produced by Evan

41:56

Chung. Willa Paskin and Katie Shepherd produced

41:58

Decoder Ring. We had edited

41:59

editing help from Joel Meyer. Derek John

42:02

is Slate's executive producer of Narrative

42:04

Podcasts, and Merrick Jacob

42:06

is senior technical director. Thank

42:08

you to Doug Malowiecki, Jim

42:10

Netzel, Greg Hebda, Sorin Davis,

42:12

Kim Bellware, Brian Morrison, and Tom

42:15

Chung. If you haven't yet, please

42:17

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